
nd Qicxin 




ss^m. s^o*"«^ 



STAFF AND SCRIP 
By 



M. J. Thomas 



Wayside flowers, or weeds — 

It is which you will, 

But an occasional crimson bleeds 

And purple still 

Mantles sometimes, as the long way leads 

Over the hill — 






'I? 



^i 



COPYRIGHT 1919 

BY 

M. J. THOMAS 



m 22 1919 

©CI.A559.ll 



THE FOUR CITIES. 

(Erse) 

Know ye of the Four Cities 
Built in the world that was? 
Passions nor pains nor pities 
The buried o-ates pass, 
Nor beheld of mortals 
The place of fallen portals — 
But the soul knows it was. 

One city was Gorias 

And it lay east, 

And another was Marias 

With the old world sunk in the west, 

And south lay G alias 

And to the north Falias, 

It hath been guessed. 

Of the east city 

It is not a spoken word. 

But an old world windborn ditty 

That saith the sign is a sword — 

The sword dividing — 

What saith the song windriding 

Ye have heard. 

Also the city south 

Had a sign of fear, 

It is in the Sirocco's mouth, 

Even a spear — 

And as the sv/ord of Gorias 

So did the spear of Galias 

Flash far and near. 

And of Falias, north, 

The wind from the ice floes saith 

To his sign of worth 

He hath the stone of death — 

A circle of spent fire, 

For a sign to desire. 

The north wind saith. 

But of Marias, sunken 

West into ancient night 

Lips long shrunken 

To the naught of the old world's blight 

Have said for us who follow 



His sign is a hollow 

Filled with waste waters and facing light. 

Where the wild seas have cloven 

A barren and bitter shore 

Was the old world fancy woven 

Of the Fallen Cities Four — 

On what drear heather, 

In what doubtful weather 

Built of the fathers who have gone before- 



FROM AEAEA. 

— And at the last leavetaking 
Hath Circe stayed the oar, 
And said ye may be making 
I wis not what lost shore; 
But ship this sheep that whither 
Blind winds soe'er drive, thither 
When ye be come, together 
Ye wear through one day more. 

And driven o'er the gangway 
The sheep bleats uncontent. 
Nor we, who take the long way 
Wis more wiiat Circe meant; 
And so we left behind us 
That isle whereof we mind us 
Till faster fetters find us 
To wearier burdens bent. 

Swift on the ship was driven 
What weary weeks to west, 
Blind morn and blinder even 
Bleak bitter blasts oppressed, 
Till hope of haven failing 
We wist not of our sailing, 
Nor 'gainst the winds prevailing 
Desired aught but rest. 

But lo, a land lowlying 
Mirklost in mist and night 
That moon and stars denying 
Lent not their little light, 
Nor sun meseemeth ever 
Was mighty there to sever 
The pall of cloud that never 
Abated of its blight. 

And through the breakers, curling 
Lean lips with hollow roar, 
We ran the ship and furling 
The sere sail urged the oar. 
And inshore from the shingle 
W^here mist and bleak moor mingle 
We digged a trench and single 
I slew the sheep on shore. 

Then 'round the trench came thronging 
The tribes of them outworn, — 
I deemed not of life's longing 



So many might be born — 
Old men of many and evil 
Days came to cark and cavil, 
And came they here in travail 
Whose life days made none mourn; 

Young men and maids unmarried. 
And mothers, babe at breast, 
Strong men war's strokes that parried, 
And weaklings peace-opprest, 
Around the trench came thronging 
In witness of life's longing 
Whom nathless all her wronging 
Death seemeth more unblest. 

For them now darkness covers 
And mist from moor and mere, 
These know the fear that hovers 
Where bodes no further fear, 
Where wan winds on the river 
And pallid aspens quiver 
And even dead men shiver 
To know the end is here. 

Howbeit where bleak meadows 
Are white with asphodel. 
And unavailing shadows 
The hollows haunt of Hell, 
O'er strengthless heads will hover 
Dead dreams of love and lover 
And troublous sleep discover 
What waking was not well. 

And aye the worm is waking 
That gnawed the heart of life 
With making and unmaking, 
And toil that takes to wife 
And liveth but in seeming 
To learn desire is dreaming 
And little light is gleaming 
Beyond this lampless strife. 

But lo, what pale queen cometh! 
And so before her fear 
Not hunted hare that hometh" 
Fleets fast as these that here 
Know her and not another. 
The sister of that other 
Whose blind embraces smother 



And quick caresses sear. 

With her is no remission 

Of sins that have been sinned, 

Nor maketh she division 

Of what hath blown the wind, 

Blind ustoward that bloweth, 

But whence is none that knoweth. 

Nor what beyond there gToweth 

Where all but thorn is thinned. 

But out of the weak weather 
And from the strengthless, lo 
Where o'er the doubtful heather 
Flits one of them that know, 
And to the dark trench bending 
He drank, and of our wending 
Hath told us, and the ending 
Of ways will somewhat show. 

So shoreward through the shimmer 
Of shadowy light we turned, 
To where with fitful glimmer 
Anon the ship lights burned, 
But in most mist of sorrow 
Than lent of any morrow 
Life now hath left to borrow, 
Or hath aforetime learned. 

And as from the sheer shingle 
We shoved to sea, the moan 
Of many seemeth mingle 
With what the waves intone 
To us of our returning. 
Our weary souls discerning 
Not sorrow, not our yearning 
Help here, but oars alone. 



A SHIPMAN OF SIDON. 

In the wake of a lost galley 
That sailed the outer seas, 
Over watery hill and valley, 
Past the gates of Hercules — 

I followed the Tyrian traders 
I moored in a Baltic Bay, 
I was Captain of the invaders 
Who bore the amber away 

I launched with Autumn paven 
Of leaves, and birds awing — 
We were afar from haven 
And many moons till spring — 

I beached in Gades' harbor, 
I heard an hymnal rolled 
To the Goddess they enarbor 
As a dragon scaled with gold — 

I saw her women leaning 
Along the temple groves 
And strangers overweening 
Buying the unclean loves. 

With silver out of Accad, 
And scarab gold of Khem, 
Nor bronze of Babel lacked 
The broidered belts of them — 

And in the incense swooning 
And savor of subtle flowers 
The heady scents attuning, 
I lost count of the hours — 

Before her veil enwoven, 
Gold warp and silver woof, 
I hissed with tongues acloven. 
Under a brazen roof. 

Her pontiffs purple-mitred 
I ringed with amber rings. 
As a merchant-ship is lightered 
For freight of costlier things — 

Till in mine own good season 

I launched and moored at the quay- 



They marveled at mine unreason, 
Tempting a winter sea — 

By night I slipt the cable, — 
With a wondrous veil of gold 
A spoil on the cabin table — 
And a Punic Captain cold — 

And in the temple acre 
A spent score of his spears — 
And who the impious taker? — 
And what the spoiler's fears? 

For I saw their beacons burning 
Headland to headland ashore — 
I trembled for our returning 
And ever I urged the oar — 

In green gulfs I saw glitter 
The gold of the Water Snake, 
And the scales of his armor litter 
The wash of the galley's wake — 

Was it the Dragon — Goddess 
Come for the loot of the veil, — ? 
For as from a woman's bodice 
The slope of the threshing tail — 

Fire flickered at the masthead, 
But I held the helm to the course- 
And ye wot if whips were wasted 
On the backs of them at the oars.— 

Till where the seaways widen 
The phare on the outer mole 
And the pleasant city of Sidon, 
The city of my soul — 



THE BELLS OF YS. 

(Breton Legend.) 

Out past the tossing- buoys, 

As trawlers tell. 

Oft in the wind's voice 

The sound of a sunken bell; 

And in the trawler's net 

A toy, an amulet, 

Wrought when the wise say not, bears witness with the bell. 

Was there a city here? 

The fisher-folk are sure — 

A city builded fair. 

As to endure; 

Is there no song thereof? 

Are not the bells enough? 

Does not the sea-wrought gold make doubly sure? 

And of it dreaming. 

Here by the seashore — 

Maybe it is more than seeming, 

The city that is no more; 

A seawhelmed city, 

Too far from us for pity. 

Haply the waves are plaining alongshore. — 

It may be, mighty seamen, 

Come out of Gades here, 

Bringing their women, 

Builded a city here — 

Or by the seaway 

Back from a Baltic bay. 

Once Tyrian amber traders beached and builded here. 

Cast up here on the strand — 

Or it may be — 

Some banished band 

A-weary of the sea, 

Seeking against the west 

A place of rest 

Builded a city here, fronting the v/ild sea — 

Did Greybeard Diniids come 
To watch the building? — 
Vv^an as the waste sea-foam 
A weak sun gilding 
Wold and increasing wall? 



Only the curlews call — 

Only oblivious eld builders and builded shielding — 

Did the grave Druids bring 

Their daughters then? — 

The bridal ring 

Binding to stranger men? — 

What is it answereth 

The voice of death? 

For none that then were here will lift up voice again. 

Unto what heaven then 

Reared they an altar here? — 

For alway men 

Some heaven hold in fear — 

And with what office 

Made they the sacrifice? 

Was it of wine or blood the gods were thirsty here? 

On what night of fear 

With what weakening of knees, 

Went down the seawall here — 

Roared on the seas ? 

Not even in dreaming 

A little light is gleaming — 

Some little light of dreams, linking the centuries — 

Out past the tossing buoys — 

A tolling bell, 

Heard on the wind's voice — 

Is it a city's knell? 

Were there no more than this 

By way of witness — 

Dreams have endured on less, of heaven and of hell- 



BELSHAZZAR'S FEAST. 

Lo, such a banquet chamber as the stars 

Must lamp, because the roof is heaven's roof, 

And Babel-walls whereon in painted wars, 

Be armies marching to the battle proof, 

And from the bronze gates to Belshazzer's seat. 

By thronging thousands, to and froward feet — 

And brazen pillars that as torches lend 
Flamboyance to the lamping of the stars. 
And turbaned cupbearers untold, that bend 
And pour, for now the captains of his wars 
Belshazzer feasts, and with them at the board's 
Long georgeousness, a thousand of his lords — 

The King's cupbearer tasted of the wine 
And v/ith obeisance handed to the king, 
Who in loud voice: "Another cup is mine — 
Let them the vessels of the temple bring — " 
And some that heard have trembled hearing it — 
But who is wise against a king's unwit? 

They brought the massy cups of beaten gold — 
An hundred brawny bondsmen of the King 
Bore to the groaning board the manifold 
Treasure that was of the drink offering — 
Belshazzer pledged his captains and his lords 
Who quaff with shouts and lifting up of swords — 

What is it maketh countenances pale. 

And knees weak under gem-engirdled coats — 

And hearts but now puffed up with pride to fail — 

As shipmen tremble upon sinking boats 

What is yon fiery finger on the wall 
Inditing of, if not a Kingdom's fall? 

"Bring the Chaldeans — let the soothsayers 

Interpret now the writing" — but the King 

Might not, for all his power, by threats or prayers 

Have the interpretation of the thing 

And troubled in his soul Belshazzer broods 

Nor hungry is his pride now, nor of foods 



Now also have the queens and concubines 
Sipped of the fragrance in the golden cups, 
Savour of old and very costly wines. 
Such as beseemeth when an Emperor sups. 
And from the women now hath come a word 



That seemed the King of wisdom when he heard — 

It is of that dissolver of the doubts 

Of dreams, who stood once as before the King, 

And him they send for and have brought with shouts 

"Room for the prophet", and with sharom playing — 

And all they harken him with bated breath 

As thus that prophet now interpreth: 

"Weighed in the balance and found wanting" — and 
"Thy Kingdom to the Medes and Persians" so 
(It is he saith) hath writ the fiery hand, 
And with obeisance to the King would go — 
But yet Belshazzer held him for a space. 
And in that now well night deserted place — 

And said to some that stay: "A chain of gold 

Now bring, and let this prophet wear, and stand 

My counsellor before me, till is told 

The end of all this — and be no man's hand 

Lifted against him for his soothsaying — 

It is Belshazzer saith it, who is King — " 

Howbeit, even as he interpreteth, 

And in that very hour, it came to pass — 

Babylon is become a place of death. 

And Cyrus sitteth where Belshazzar was 

Drunken with such a blasphemous pride as none 

Hath known before, no, not in Babylon — 



BERENICE. 

Thou seemest not of any day 
Of ours, or any hour or year, 
But always of some faraway 
And aeon-sunken hemisphere — 
Some continent the whelming sea 
To lost Atlantis gathered in, 
Before of continents that be 
The little histories begin. 

Thine eyes have looked on Titan wars, 

Unblinking at the red and bronze 

Of helmets lifted to the stars 

And breastplates blazoned with the suns; 

Thou knowest, in nostalgic noons 

Of unimagined temple groves — 

And timbrels beneath burning moons — 

And Atlantean loves — 



MY HOTEL. 

From the midnight street 
To my hotel 
Where the players meet 
In vaudeville — 

Nancy and baggage 
Late o' nights 
Till the curtain drops 
And out the lights — 

Pitiful players 
As they may 
Wearing the motley 
In a cheap play — 

By quips and capers 
Trying to keep 
The pot aboiling — 
And when they'd weep 

Though the fool's fond heart 
Be like to break — 
What are hearts for 
If not to ache? 

And after the play 
In my hotel 
If they do forget 
The prompter — well, 

A bite, a bottle 
Perhaps a bout 
With the soubrette — 
And the lights are out — 

Suppose the world 
Were my hotel, 
Would not the fable 
Fit as well? 



BETWEEN QUADRILLES. 

SCENE: The State Ball; later, Paris and 
the Alps. 

DRAMATIS PERSONAE: 

Monsieur, who narrates; a friend 
of Monsieur; The Colonel; Madame. 

The orchestra a moment cease 

That torture of the throbbing strings, 

The muted violins release 

Low laujvhs and lovers' whisperings; 

As epaulets and gowns go by, 

The comedy of Mais and Love 

A philosophic friend and I 

Consider in a cool alcove. 

My friend is saying: "In the Alps 
With Hannibal, the Punic rear 
Refused to march — a score of scalps 
Iberian, branded 'Mutineer' — 
A bagatelle, but for the shaft 
That pierced a woman's litter — one 
Among the Lesbians, following oft 
On Captain Love, from sun to sun. 

She bled, and in the Alpine cold 

They could not staunch the bleeding, but 

A squad of Libyans was told 

To bear the woman to a hut. 

The elephants go lurching on — 

Night and the enemy are nigh — 

The Libyans murmur: 'She is one, 

And must a cohort stand and die?' — 

Tenderly, for her face was fair, 
A bronzed Centurian cast his cloak 
Over the Lesbian fainting there, 
Intending leaving till awoke 
To life or death the woman, but 
He could not go — his company 
Pressed on — he lingered in the hut 
Bended above her — silently — " 

"But written in what chronicle? — " 

I asked my friend — "Will Monsieur v/ait?" — 

And Monsieur waits till someone tell 

The tale he's promised, soon or late — 



Marking meanwhile the cadences 

In Madame's voice, as of that song — 

A Sapphic stress of melodies — 

A poignant sweetness — overstrong — 

*'But Monsieur must meet her" — and 
Madame is lifting — but such eyes! — 
Dreamful of what exotic land — 
What esoteric ministries? 
Mirrors of amber, such as lay 
In Baltic seabeds, till in Tyre 
A wonder of the far-away, 
It braceleted a Queen's desire. 

A seeming-solitary man, 
With trap-like lips and iron-grey hair, 
And bronzed as by an Afric sun, 
Approached and bent o'er Madame's chair- 
Why must I wonder if the link 
Of love or friendship bound the twain? 
And what was there to make me think 
Of an indissoluble chain? 

"But, Monsieur — the Colonel" — who 

Bowed me a rather formal bow. 

And talked, as chance acquaintance do. 

Of nothing I remember now, 

But with a certain oddity — 

Some verbal eccentricities, 

Such as for Black, the Pontic Sea, 

And for Crimea, Chersonese. 

A very solitary man — 

And yet I knew him, in the end. 

As but the sympathetic can 

Appreciate the closest friend; 

As moulded by the antique law, 

He seemed — that of the tiger's tooth; 

And told me, as of things he saw, 

V/ithout a shudder at the truth. 

We talked of Flaubert's novel once, 
The horror of the crucified 
Lions, and seeming for the nonce 
At home as seldom in the tide 
Of present things, the Colonel then 
Engaged me for an Alpine tramp, 
And promised me a shudder, when 
We suppered in Hasdrubal's camp. 



'T was on that tramp he said: "And here, 
The Libyan ranks two-deep a-march, 
There was a tumult, as the rear 
Swung yonder, round a lonely larch — 
The twanging of a bow-string, and 
A woman wounded — it is all — " 
A gesture of the Colonel's hand — 
And Monsieur back there at the ball 



And Madame? — But the strings at fret 

Throb on, as when there at the ball 

Her eyes met mine — and even yet 

I can't quite comprehend it all — 

By what compulsion must I think 

Of an indissoluable chain? — 

And isn't there somewhere a link 

I've missed, that might have made it plain? 

Suppose, for instance, Madame, (but 

Such eyes! — far be the thought from me!) 

Suggests the Lesbian in the hut, 

As per the new psychology, — 

Then played upon the oddities 

I've noted in him, till her tool 

God knows in what chicaneries. 

The old blade plays Miladi's fool — 

It's certain of their circle, some 
Had heard — perhaps believed, the tale, 
That otherwise could hardly come 
With me to make most others pale; — 
And it was Paris in the days 
Before the boulevards were blue — 
Par excellence, the time and pjace 
For marketing les beaux yeux. 



THE POEMS OF PAI TA-SHUN. 

Pictures of visions painted in a dream 
Of far off cities under a strange sun, 
In centuries forgotten — such the theme 
And vision in the verse of Pai Ta-Shun — 
And colors as of undiscovered skies 
A splendor in our unexpectant eyes. — 

The wild geese winging from the Chinese wall 
To the Siberian tundra — to the fens 
Where peacock cranes by Brahmapootra call 
In raucous salutation of their hens — 
So many languages love learns to use — 
So many stars the wanderers may choose — 

And golden dragons, sprawling in the fret 

Of fabulous embroidery on silk. 

Red as the camel's manes in yonder gate, 

Of ivory as Manchurian mares' milk — 

The gate how many leathern-harnessed hordes 

Have passed, as Pekin changed her Tartar lords — 

Over a river springs a humpbacked span, 

On either bank the cultivated tea — 

And by that bridge, almost since man was man, 

Has youth adventured on discovery — 

The flowering tea — fond parents — and the rest 

Forsaken for the sempiternal quest — 

Does the return this faded print portray? — 
A starveling parrot, with bedraggled plume 
Beating at beauty's lattice — on a day 
That beauty opening lets in her room — 
And marking the fed fowl his plumage preen, 
Weeps her lost lover's spirit fleshed therein 

It is a subtle argument, that souls 

Are clad and clothed again in forms of flesh — 

Earth and all earth's of heaven and hell the goals 

After each agony has loosed the leash — 

A dream — but here the interpretation says 

Love is eternal as the length of days: 

"Where golden dragon barges block the stream 
The quays are crowded with heaped chests of tea ; 
The mandarins in their silks, as in a dream. 
Sit at the customs, taking toll of me — 
My dragon barge tomorrow drives down stream, 



My farbrought treasure to a bower I dream.— 

From Thibet, where the temple tiles outsold 
The golden sun, this jade for her, and this 
Tiara from a monastery, so old. 
There Buddha's footprint pilgrims kneel to kiss— 
And from Nepaul this sublescented scroll, 
The aroma in the parchment of a soul" — 

Did the farwandering merchant's sampan sail 
Bring to the waiting wife in Kinsay all 
This treasure inventoried? Of what avail 
To ask it? Who among us may recall 
The glory of visions that once paved with gold 
Courts that seem sordid since our eyes are old— 



THE CEMETERY OF THE WOMEN OF 
HATHOR. 

Recently found in Egypt. 

Within the temple precincts, but apart, 
In life as they here sepulchred, it lies — 
A place of skulls after the delver's heart 
In the debris of buried centuries — 
Trinkets and piteous bits of plaited hair 
Fashioning- forth the flesh these women were 



Enter the forecourt, pass the colonnade. 
And lo the chambers of their service ranged, 
Each in her niche of sanctuaried shade 
Immutably from worship unestranged 
Of Her, who with the right hand brings to breath 
And with the left delivers unto death. 

A^nd in the forecourt, out of every land 
Between the rising and the setting sun 
With heavy purses Hathor's votaries stand 
Waiting the woman he hath lusted on — 
And in the colonnades the cups of wine 
Her acolytes with amaranth entwine — 

The silver sistrum's subtly-fingered strings — 
And lithe brown bodies rythmically sway — 
Braceletted arms and ankles rich with rings — 
Estatic frenzy dancing cut her day — 
And pallor, painted with a hectic bloom, 
And past the court an untenanted room — 

And they were young whose pitiable skulls 
Are tumbled here, as proves the abundant hair — 
And when, for ornaments of gold and jewels, 
Was this kind merchandised which was not fair — ? 
And surely, for so much of coffined gold 
More than the body's grace these women sold, 

So that the silver sistrums not for long 
Provoked desire in devoted hands, 
Nor on their fervid lips lascivious song 
Brought Hathor treasure out of many lands — 
Their fleeting day a fever, and the night 
Of these deluded — but let God do right — ! 

Because beyond this she had naught to give — 

Because she loved — Osiris, or by whom 

Be judgment rendered — let the woman live! 



Open before Thy servant's feet the tomb — 
Do Thou accept her, decked as women be, 
She doubted not, acceptable to Thee. 



THE TOMB OF NAKHT. 

**Come, every one that liveth upon earth, 
Come, I will show you of my way of life, 
I will bear witness to you of rewards; 
Come, ye shall judge me in my death and birth, 
I, Prince and Priest of Am.on — now the shards 
Are shattered, if the vessel was of worth — '* 

So Nakht, the Priest of Amon, on his tomb — 
So on the walls thereof, as who desires 
Old age, interment and meet obsequies; 
Sated with life, as one content with doom, 
''Enter" he says, "Where Nakht by Tawi lies, 
Wed in our lives, together in the tomb, — 

"Enter, and see" — the silver sistrums, keyed 

In Amon's house, as Pharaoh's heart might throb — 

And of the temple choir a woman sings — 

And strings so subtly fingered, as a reed 

Sore shaken, in the voice of Nakht a sob — 

On that day when the God spake Nakht indeed — 

Sphinxes inscrutable — an avenue. 

Wide truncate palace portals, all aglow 

With blue and red and brown and green and chrome- 

And Nakht, the serving Priest, has paid the due 

Of universal life, as Amon spake, 

With Tawi's voice, "Take the Choirwoman home" — 

And hunting birds, and banquets, as a Prince 
And Princess live — but pass these pictures by — 
Consider now the Banquet of the Dead — 
A board, but meats are not in evidence — 
And many guests and mutes with muffled head — 
And a blind harper — but let us go hence. 



AT THE END OF WAYS. 

And now at last our pilgrim song is ended, 
A ballad burden, broken here and there 
By moanings for what never may be mended, 
And earthly sighs for something heavenlier — 
And all things whereof saith the song are one 
Under the shining of an altered sun. 

Let us consider of the pilgrim's way, 

A moment's space, or ere the scroll be sealed, 

What suns were lampads of a doubtful day, 

And in the light thereof what things revealed, 

As past old Hellas, dov/n by Babylon, 

And back by Tyre, his weary steps wore on — 

Yea, weary, — for betimes the pilgrim shoon 

Were iron on his feet, by Allemaine 

As out of France he came, a cup and spoon 

His girdle weight, and hard to fill again — 

And very weary, as not of his age, 

The spirit was that went on pilgrimage. 

Albeit his craft, learned of the Troubadour, 
Awhile he loved, for that half -heathen lay; 
And sometimes, passing on by some obscure 
Pine arbored place, the vision of a fay; 
And once that Lady of the Hollow Hill, 
Strange and transfoi*med, howbeit beauteous still. 

But by no marching music led to Rome, 
Not long the city by the Tiber held. 
And but a little while the silver foam, 
No longer nereid-breasted as of eld, 
And thenceward on unto the sepulchre 
Of a dead Christ, the way was wearier. 

Strange company the pilgrim oft would meet — 

A brother pilgrim, sore asick at soul; 

Another, always sighing for the fleet 

Far Apriltide, as in continual dole — 

And some, who of the treasure house of Kings 

Were guardians, and told him wondrous things. 

None knoweth of them but the quaX^ering scribes 

Inditing thereof in forgotten script — 

Lost in the lumber room of nameless tribes. 

Of dateless centuries, nor ever lipt. 

Save as by chance sometimes, as saith the song, 



Lest to the dead be done undying wrong. 

Also the pilgrim hath his wrestlings 

With his own soul, as downward slopes the way 

Unto that eld which hath no wakenings 

Save out of night into a darker day 

A little of these troublous things he saith — 
And would not that too much it wearieth. 

And since all men love most a lightsome song,, 
(As men will whistle in a haunted room) 
Ail we to muffled drums who march along — 
The way, or broad or strait, until the tomb, 
So as the pilgrim might forget, hath he 
Attuned the strings to lighter minstrelsy 

It is all over now — our song is sung — 

There will be no more touching of the strings— 

This singing craft is only for the young 

With unspoiled outlook upon piteous things 

And if an elder art be moved to sing 

The cup is bitter of a poisoned spring. 



A BALLAD OF TYNESIDE. 

(Old Scots). 

1. 

Sae lang- the laird bides owersea 
Wha' rides for France by Rhine, 
His ain men noo are thinkin' he 
Will ride nae mair by Tyne. 



The Master \vi' his eyes o' blue 
(Oh his dead mither's eyne!) — 
The bonny bairn's his ain law noo 
In a' the lands by Tyne. 

The burn wins laughin' doon the brae 
And singiii' into Tyne — 
The Master wins doon his way 
And singin' ower the wine. 

But aye sae bonny there's nae flower 
But laughs up i' his eyne, 
Ridin* sae brave frae bower to bower 
Wi' loose rein beside Tyne. 

2. 
There's glamour i' the glint o' gold 
And blinkin' ower the wine — 
And a man's bought, and a maid's sold 
Beside the brig o* Tyne. 

'Tis Maisie's lured by the yellow sheen 
(Oh Maisie's laughin' eyne!) 
Sae the Master's flauntin' a merry quean 
And a mither's sad by Tyne. 

But the Master sniffs fu' mony a flower 
(Mony ha' rued it sine) 
There's Marjorie i' Maisie's bower, 
And ither tears by Tyne. 

Sae the Master flaunts his feres among 
As youth before and sine, 
While the blood's hot", and the bairn's young, 
And siller beside Tyne. 

o 
O. 

Wha's this sae grim rides up the brae 
And ower the brig o' Tyne? 
There's nae mair laughin' lood the day 
Ower the auld laird's wine! 



There's nae mair flout o' pimp and bawd 
Wha wrangle i' the wine, 
But silent halls that rang sae lood 
Wi' riot beside Tyne. 

4. 
The auld laird's sittin' dour at hame 
Stintin' himsei' the wine; 
The Master's hidin' frae his shame 
Ower the windy brine. 

Wha dreams he's ridin' up the brae 
And ower the brig o' Tyne 
The blue bells laughin' i' the May 
Up into his blear eyne. 

And harkenin' the bright burn sing 
Itsel' doon into Tyne 
He's wakened up to nae sic thing 
As was sae sweet lang sine. 

But quaffs his tears and craves the husks 
Wha revelled beside Tyne, 
Dreamin' o' civets and o' musks 
And reekin' o' the swine. 
5. 
But it's nae that, nor the siller spent 
Maun greet the while his eyne, 
But wi' it a' the rest that went, 
And v/ilna' back by Tyne. 



THE PRODIGAL, 

(Old Scots) 

Salt wi' my tears the cup I'm quaffin' 
Noo the lassies yon ha' gript my gold; 
Where will ye ken they're warm and laughin', 
And I sae cauld! 

Well wi' ye is it, painted harlots, 
Scented sae swift wi' a' your musks! 
But it's ill wi' us wha paid your scarlets 
And crave the husks. 

I wa'd win hame to my faither, sayin', 
Sae is my sin sair i' thy sight, 
I am unworthy noo the stayin' 
Wi* thee the nicht. 

But do thou, oh my faither, mak* me 
Thy least o' kerns that serve for hire — 
My faither, for thy servant tak' me, 
To light thy fire — 

I am sae cauld! it's wind and idled — 

How should I stand up i' that place 
Wi' the brand o' lusts I couldna' bridle 
Upon my face? 

How should my faither's house abide me, 
Reekin' sae foul o' the pens o' swine? 
My faither, maun mine ain sel* hide me 
Frae sight o* thine! 

I wa'd win hame! — wha'se ain dead mither 
Mightna' abide her ain son noo — 
Wi' taint o' rot when roses wither 
Wha' sheds the dew? 

I wa'd win hame! — Wha till Hell's frozen 
Maun here abide and waste and yearn — 
Wi' us wha wend the .way we've chosen 
There's nae return — 



*Tm rather tired of it^'- 



From a letter of General Funston, U. S. A. 
Dead in command on the Mexican border, 

February, 1917. 

"I'm tired" — who wouldn't be 
Tired of it! — 
The little wit — 
The mere futility — 

The young blood mounting hot, 
Seems we can do it — 
We all come to it — 
And it matters not — 

We die — 

And that we planned, 
The rythm scanned, 
Rings faultily — 

We are such stuff 
As dreams are made of — 
The vision thereof 
Enough — 



WHAT DREAMS MAY COME. 

1. 

What dreams may come ! for I've indulged 
In dreams, more than I would confess — 
The budget would seem overbulged 
Were I the tale entire to dress — 
But there are two or three the years 
Have relegated to the heap 
That is compact of hopes and fears 
We laugh at when we cease to weep — 

2. 
And first — but everyone believes 
His dream of love unique, and this 
Prompts me to merely say it grieves 
My self love yet, I craved a kiss 
That was denied — and in the end 
The lover didn't pine away — 
He's here, my sentimental friend, 
Ten stone upon the stage today — 

3. 
And then I thought that such a mind 
As mine, must win to mastery — 
I nested golden eggs, to find 
Whose chicklets now, don't ask of me 
My strength I measured with the strength 
Of them that hold the lists, and found 
(I'm glad I found it out at length) 
We're certain of six feet of ground — 

4. 
So much estate the market place 
Refuses none — and it is all 
That usually rewards the race 
Insensate, where so many fall — 
Mad Argonauts, in idle quest 
For what the world can but deny — 
Adventurers, of whom the best 
Win only when about to die. 

5. 
Another dream I nursed whilom, — 
I thought in letters or in art 
Their haven is whose .spirit's home, 
If that they find it, lies apart 
From where men gather and the crowd 
Is careless of the antique wrong, • 
And beauty throttled in her shroud — 
And all indifferent to song. 

6. 
I thought I might be one of those — 



I know now, in a thousand suns 

Whose shadow, in the withered close 

Where poets gather, falleth once — 

Fool that I was, to dream on such 

As I am that the light could fall — 

I've wakened since and wept — how much, 

I can't begin to tell it all. 

7. 
Let's laugh, since naught it boots to weep — 
Did not the modern Sappho sing? 
And pity 'tis she could not keep 
That brood of sorig beneath her wing — 
When Ella of Wisconsin sang 
Down halls of pain we walk alone. 
Beneath far roofs meseemeth rang 
A strain that none need blush to own. 

8. 
The inspiration passed from her — 
As it has passed from me; and now 
Behooves the ending worthier 
My tale of dreams than I know how — 
Lord Bacchus, help! for unto thee 
I've poured the sacrificial wine — 
Art thou too then become to me 
As others whom I deemed divine? 

9. 
Because thou failest in the hour 
Of this my need — as larger gods 
Have failed, and proven in their power 
No potence is against the rods 
Of circumstance and time, and all 
That we submit and half repent, 
Until the muffled trumpets call 
To fields where even dreams relent. 



A FRENCH SEAPORT. 

(American troops arrived and disembarked 
this morning. June 27, 1917 — Dispatch) 

The transports, singly and by twos, 
Drop anchor, and 

Under the stars and stripes our boys 
Begin to land. 

Crowds, as they warp in, and acclaim 
As the gang planks creak — 
Few, but enough they see you, boys, 
Strong men, not weak — 

Do I read my newspaper aright? 
Or in a dream? — 
As a child playing with new toys, 
Does it only seem? — 

Toys, do I say? There are none here — 

Not as babes play 

Into this battle go our boys 

Over there today — 

Once, anyway, unto every man. 
Lest all be lost, 

It is given him to make his choice, 
Nor count the cost. 

We were at the parting of the ways. 
Mother of men! 

Did you not (witness there our boys) 
Make your choice then? — 

On shore the belfries rock, the bells 
Peal over the throng — 
So are ye consecrate to it, boys, 
Till ye right this wrong — 

Where the guns there, out on the Flanders front, 

Never are still 

Till the eardrums split and the senses blunt, 
To be killed or kill — 

Gassed or gunned in a devilish place, 
Not Dante penned — 
Until ye chain the dragon, boys, 
Unto the end — 



So shall our Mother know ye then, 
Her sons, indeed — 
And the fathers, seeing ye be men, 
Of the old breed. 



THE LAVV^ OF THE FATHERS. 

Commenting on a certain treatise. 

It was the law of the fathers — 

Needing no learned gloss — 

Of the cave man's rib and the ape, his sib, 

In lines that curve and cross, 

It was scratched in scriptured caverns, 

Scrawled where the earth drip wears — 

And the law was theirs, and they lived thereby 

With sabretooth and bears. 

It was the law of the fathers — 

Heave ye the stone away 

Before my cave, where is mammoth-meat, 

It is lawful if I slay — 

The women heard in the morning 

As the sun crested the hill. 

See thou to this, till I come at night. 

And if any enter, kill. 

It was the law of the fathers — 

There be few of our own tongue. 

And the tribes are strong of the stranger speech, 

V/hen we in here were young; 

So that they charged their women, 

Bide thou beside the gear, 

Thrust out, with this my shapen shaft. 

What eye soever peer. 

It was the law of the fathers — 
(And I think you'd say, our ov/n) 
I will wreak my wrath in any cave — 
My cave ye leave alone — 
Leave it to me and my women — 
Yea, whiles is left for gear 
A chipped flint and a shapen shaft 
And a hand to hurl it here. 

It was the law of the fathers — 
Here it is tooth for tooth. 
Unto what profit hath a man 
Foregone his wrath from ruth? 
In whom then have ye helping? 
Do the tribes of strange speech spare? 
Art thou suppliant, as the hairy arm 
Grips of the glacial bear? 



It was the law of the fathers — 

Ye may glean in the scriptured caves — 

But ye read it also in the gloss 

That is given of their graves; 

For the deep-digged drift bears witness — 

Who liveth, he shall die, 

And here, if it be tooth for tooth, 

There, is it eye for eye? 

It was the law of the fathers — 

There be omens, if ye heed — 

Also some charms, the sower saith, 

As he soweth of his seed; 

Heed ye his charms and the omens, 

If haply in them be help — 

For surely the dog that topped the bitch 

Is sire unto the whelp. 

It was the law of the fathers — 
The crooked is not straight — 
Neither we know in any wise 

This evil to abate 

If they he spoiled foregather 

Beyond where here is light — 

We will earth his bones with an ochre pot, 

That he sniear his arm to smite. 

It was the law of the fathers — 

Let him go against the dead 

In his gear, as he hath fared forth here, 

With his fore-arm painted red — 

We have given heed to the omens 

If his charms our father keep — 
If dreams of the head upon the bed 
Be more than the price of sleep — 

It was the law of the fathers 



There were giants in those days — 
Nor our fathers multiplied on earth, 

As we upon our ways 

And God said, ''Shall my spirit 

Against him always strive? 

But strive ye, under the fathers* law, 
To save the soul alive. 



'Fort Dardanos also has been silenced" 

Despatch, March 1915. 

By Hellespont the monster guns 
From iron lips belch dreadful death; 
By Hellespont with Helen once 
Passed Paris, Master Homer saith; 
And it was here passed Philip's son, 
With many Macedonian spears, 
To die a king in Babylon, 
Fulfilled of glory, not of years. 

By here the Persian, o'er the bridge 

Of boats, marched on to Marathon 

But look, where over yonder ridge 
What giant eagles winging on — 
The birds of Mars, for Jupiter 
W^ould hardly recognize the bird 

That circles seaward back and there 

The monster guns again are heard. 

Blind Dandolo, up this strait sea 
Piloted Venice, and beyond 

The Thracian Bosporus and he 

Is Admiral on the Stygian pond 
Else might we learn it from his lips 
Whose City conquered Constantine's, 
Whether he would have sailed his ships 
Up Hellespont, through floating mines. 

But stand here in the coning tower — 
Hark to the fifteen forty-fives — 
Earth rocks — in less than half an hour 
A horde has yielded up its lives; 
These are not painted Argive prows, 
Nor Venice galleys, but from these 
Black turrets there be dealt such blows 
As Gods deal in their anarchies. 

Oh for another Homer, who — 

For not a lesser master might — 

Would sing in measure meet and due 

The fortune of this wondrous fight; 

Until again the victor drag 

The vanquished at his chariot-wheel. 

Around a City, where his flag 

Shall flaunt whose steel is tempered steel. 



RED POPPIES. 

All Summer, in the fields of France 
Red poppies blow — 
All Summer, everj^vhere in France 
Until the snow — 

Before, wild flowers white and blue. 
Yellow and pied, 
Painted the fields in every hue — 
Before they died — 

Now only poppies, red, red, red, 
All over France — 
Because not only wine is red 
Today, in France. 

"Never, I sometimes think, the rose 
Blows half so red 

As where" — in France the poppy blows, 
He might have said — 

Bard of the red wine and the rose, 
What v/ould you say, 
Seeing how red the poppy blows 
In France today? 

Would the old tentmaker put up 
His tools, and "why 
This of the color of the cup? 
The wine is dry" — 

Or prophet of profane despair. 
Thus had he said: 
"What hath it profited them there 
That they are dead?" 

Or with a backlook at blind chance, 
"What would you have, 
After the late events in France, 
Over a grave?" 

But because v/hatever God you will 
Planted a sign — 

Red poppies, where now neither will 
The lipless wine. 

Nor were confounded there in France 
Confronting hell — 



But where they danced the devil's dance 
Red poppies tell — 

They of the fellowship in France 
Say, even so: 

Is it these three red years by chance 
Red poppies blow? 



"A TREMENDOUS OFFENSIVE ON THE 
ITALIAN FRONT"— 

October, 1917. 
The Consul in his red paludament — 
The Cimbri chieftans, cloaked in shaggy skins 
And helmed in auroch horns, before his tent — 
The Conference begins — 

"What would the Cimbri, warring here on Rome — 
With the Republic?" — *'Land, enough to live — 
Also to take it, Consul, are we come, 
If and ye will not give" — 

"But Rome will give, yea, but the tribes shall have 
Land, and enough — till none of ye but owns 
Some land — " theirs yet where rank the grasses wave, 
And men yet dig their bones. 



CIVIS AMERICANUS SUN. 

Flags that flew adverse at Quebec 
And Lundy's Lane — 
From the Shannon and the Chesapeake 
At mizzen and main — 

We are entered upon altered years — 

There overseas 

Who clips those colors also shears 

These. 

One red cup pressed to either mouth — 
Bitter red wine — 

Pledged one forever, north and south 
Of Forty-nine. 



**A movement of British Troops from India to 
Turkestan joined forces with the Turcomans and 
Bokharans'' — 

Despatch August 17, 1918. 

Is it a dream — or do I read aright? 
The British in Bokhara — which, meseems, 
Was such a city, and but overnight, 
As haunts a hashish eater in his dreams 
Of Khans in purple caftans, or dark red 
The cloth embroidered for his golden coat — 
As a Khan walks the battlements, and shed 
That gleam against the sunset on the moat — 

1 see the truncate towers flanking the gate 



As architects of Islam, half Chinese, 
Dreamed it; and armspace in the tesselate 
Of walls, lest archers, as their shafts they loose 
Lack room enough a lofty targe to choose 
Among the marauders of the centuries. 



A BOOK OF HOURS. 

At dawn — in the boots that borrow 
Strength for the stride today — 
As against what lean tomorrow 
May have to pay 

Noon — on the nearer reaches 
In overalls — over soon — 
As a lengthening shadow stretches 
Into afternoon — 

Slippers — and feet on the fender, 
A book and a good cigar — 
And the morning star the lender 
Unto the evening star 

Lamps — and a hearth that sputters- 
Live coals — a steady glow — 
Outside a wind that mutters — 
A flake of snow 

Darkness — and dying embers — 
Drifts — and the ashes, white — 
And the blast is bleak December's 
That rattles the panes tonight. 



A VOICE IN THE GATE. 

After Reading Nietszche. 

"Who hath a heart that is not hard 
Tlien let him die — " 
And as the crowds surged cityward 
They heard him cry — 

''Pass thou the populace, as one 
Who doth not spit — 
Spare thy contemming, seeing none 
Is worthy it — 

*'Bear thee in joyous guise, as who 
Goes towards his goal 
Possessing all things, as is due 
The noble soul — 

"Then are thou noble, having cast 
Thy cloak of sin — 
Hath time not waited till this last 
Revel begin? — 

"Patient, till all thou mayest be 
Bright shall be born, 
And purple over a grey sea 
Breaketh the morn, 

"Be thy morn exercise, thy noon 
A clash of swords — 
Booted ye go, your gifts the boon 
Of Overlords — 

"Ye go, till also with these herds 

Ye shall go down 

There where are hailed with equal words 

Captain and clown — 

"But ye are twisted in the Ring 
Ever it turns 

Into itself — a pregnant thing — 
A womb that yearns 

Unto the manchild, yea, though death 

Be born again 

Ye shall be glad again of breath, 
Being strong men, " 

And the mighty-thewed have edged their swords. 



Hardened their hearts, 

Saying, who of the whole are lords 

Their's are the parts — 

Saith the haughtyhearted to himself, 
Spurning the meek 
And such as suffer much for pelf 
And the weary weak — 

And out of that mouth swords and spears, 

Tempest and storm. 

Till substance was not, only tears 

And blood the form 

Because a hermit on a hill 
Forsook his cave — 
Game down, saying Say ye, I will — 
Was earth a grave 

— The tongue is as a two-edged sword — 

Bridle ye it — 

And a wild colt the winged word 

Ye may not bit. 



THERE IS A MINSTER. 

There is a Minster, sun and moon and star 
Lamp but as mortuary candles burn — 
The place is ruinous, but thence afar 
Though oft I wander, always I return 

For I am lonely, as the lost are lone; 
Unquiet, as the soul that cleaves to naught — 
And here the Melancholy winds intone 
Antiphonies to melancholy thought. 

Seemeth tonight the waste devouring years 
Have wrought some wizardry within the place — 
Seemeth my carven saints are weeping tears 
Of stony sorrow, fixed upon each face — 

And all my gargoyles mock with granite grin, 
From each his aerie loft and lifted coign, 
The desolation that has waxed within — 
The death and desolation here that join — 

Till of the wondrous fane, so vastly planned, 
Some fallen arches, a fast-crumbling wall, 
A choir in ruin, witness to the hand 
That faltered in the building it is all. 

Unprofitable sorrow! sorry mask 
Of mirth, ye pledges of my spirit's pawn! 
V/hose tears, whose scorn, alike the builder ask. 
What of such darkness out of such a dawn? 

Let pinions answer from their plane that stooped 
And folded wings that wearied of their flights 
And then from cavernous dim places trooped 
The subterranean crew decay invites. 

Plumes once resplendent, trailing in the mire, 

Supine in lost aloofness splendor spoiled! 

Proud eagle spirit, that would still aspire 
V/ith sullied plumiage, be thou first assoiled! 

But of the penance? Art thou strong to pay, 
My wavering weakness? so of purpose set 
Seemeth the harper, ever and alway 
With strings of mournful memories at fret? 

And though the raiment of the years be rent — 
The vesture of thy morning in the night — 



May broken spirits, unto bondage bent, 

Garb them again in gartments of the light? 

But now the mornsped shafts slant long athwart 
The transept and along the wasted wave, 
Touching sepulchral effigies that start 
From sleep and shift the cerecloth of the grave — 

So that each carved sarcophagus, meseems, 
Conches a quickened body, that with hands 
Crossed meekly in a marble bosom, dreams 
Of resurrection, and the riven bands 

Of death, no more triumphant tomb by tomb 

The quick light touches with a shaft divine — 
My spirit long despairing, unto whom 
Vouchsafed the vision, is it then a sign? 



MACABRE. 

Through a cofRn lid 

As the cold drops drip, 

Who will forbid 

If a bony lip 

From the roots of the yew 

In the clinging' mold 

Suck so much dew 

As a skull may hold? 



STAFF AND SCRIP. 

"Meseems thine is a weary way, 

Thou of the sandal shoon — " 

The pilgrim's staff beside him lay, 

Around the heat did swoon — 

'Twere good with him beneath the boughs, 

Methought, to while the noon. 

*'Thou farest on to Palestine?" 

"Yea, friend" "and why?" "for peace"- 

"Now share with me this cup of wine 
And bread, and sit at ease 
An hour, and tell thy tale", — the which 
He told in words as these: 

HIS TALE. 

Long years I wear the sandal shoon 

And bear the staff and scrip, 

And falter in the desert noon 

When oft my v;eak steps trip 

On brown hot stones, whose jagged edge 

Is like an adder's lip. 

Aye faring towards that Palestine 

V/here men say there is peace, 

For themx with troubled souls as mine 

And pools that never cease 

To flow with healing balm water 

And I would bathe in these. 

Being wholly sick with sin, for once, 

Ere yet these sad dim eyne — 

Had darkened to our southern suns 

I drank of deadly wine — 

That paynim Love's, whose lewd red lips 

Have sucked the red from mine. 

Her I would sing in heathen lays, 

How sweeter far are hers, 

Ah me! than Blessed Mary's ways 

Whose breasts are sepulchers 

Of joy, I sang, among my feres 

And queans, a crew perverse, 

And strange, who found on paynim tombs 
In that old land that be 

Their Gods, even such as had been Rome's, 
Carved white and nakedly 



On stone — as this foul Love and One 
The dandleth on her knee — 

Her Son, as Christ is Mary's (God 

Assoil me, I would sing 

Even so) — and feign how through the wood 

These twain rode in the spring 

While some strewed flowers — my soul is sick 

From all that wantoning, — 

Of carnal feres. With painted grin 
These come, when I would pray, 
Meseems, and jeer — for so my sin 
Doth weigh on me alway, 
Until most like a demon's eye 
The sun doth lour by day, 

And till the moon, a leprous spot 

Glued to the face of Death, 

Pollutes the night — though well I wot 

'Tis but my sin that saith 

These things, God's world being otherwise, 

If one draw blameless breath. 

And once I plucked red flowers like those 
Erev/hile I loved too well, 
Beside a weltering lake, the rose 
Coal-red that roots in hell — 
Strewn for a sign upon my way, 
For the prick thereof was fell — 

So that I cried a piteous cry 

And sank a writhing heap. 

And heard a great voice from the sky. 

As in a trance or sleep; 

''Behold! thou who didst sow the seed — 

Is't pleasant now to reap?" — 

Such is the harvest of my sin 
That like a serpent's tooth 
Doth gnaw the piteous soul within, 
That knov/eth not, in sooth. 
Whether of Christ the pitiful 
I sinned not past the ruth. 

So that I wander from the way 
That leadeth to His shrine. 
For though I journey night and day 
Long years, these weary eyne 



Have seen it not — perchance, for me, 
There is no Palestine. 

For all the chambers of my soul 
Are limned with shapes of lust. 
The walls thereof in part and whole 
Bricked only with bone dust 
Found in the paynim sepulchres, 
And mortared with that must. 

Here endeth the tale — 

He ceased — a wood-land chorister 

Gan sing — ''not yet is done 

Thy day of life", I said, "and there 

Be some that peace have won 

Or ere the night, who sinned yet more — " 

I turned, but he was gone. 

And when a little on the land 

The smitting sun declined, 

Also my staff was in my hand 

And faring on, to find 

That thing I sought, I left the place 

Anon and far behind. — 

For now a Knight Hospitaller 

I counted not the years 

But spurred against the soldan, where 

Were set in rest his spears. 

And when the swordplay summoned not 

My strength was for my feres. 

So that it fell one afternoon 

I stood within the fane 

And watched the wearers of the shoon 

That came and went again — 

And one who weareth such a mien 

As spirits must, in pain. 

Surely his quest is peace who now 
Is entered from the day — 
(Methought) — upon whose piteous brow 
The graven shadows weigh — 
As when late rays from desert suns 
On columned ruins play — 

"And now in Christ His sepulchre 

I lay my load of doom" 

He said, "beneath His blazon here, 



The which hangs oe'r His tomb — 
And lo! save for that golden gleam 
No light is in the gloom" — 

Anon his mood was of the sort 

That sore his breast he beat — 

So gently to the chapel court 

I led him from the heat 

And fervors of the pilgrim throngs 

To worship there that meet. 

And when my service in the fane 

That day was done, I went 

Where I had left him and again 

I found him, well content 

That I was come, ''for now", he said, 

"My store of strength is spent" 

"And surely thou art come to me 

As one came long ago 

Who fain my comforter would be, 

If I would have it so. 

But ah! what growths my tree entwine, 

How might the young man know?" 

"Yet comfortable words he spake, 
How till the set of sun 
The halting may his furlong make 
Though mile he maketh none, 
So from the v/ay he wander not 
Until the race be run." 

(Where now thou wanderest who shall say 
What strange sick growths entwine? 
Yet surely thou hast held the way 
Unto that Palestine — 
And washed, in some Lethean mere. 
That wounded soul of thine.) — 

"For I have knelt by Christ His tomb 

And am God's- belted earl. 

Who was before by deadly doom 

Beelzebub his churl — 

I who have guttered with the swine 

Am robed in gold and pearl — " 

(Hardly, that time, upon what quest 

I fared, myself I knew, 

What time was bared this bleeding breast 



To mine astonied view, 

As toward the sudden slopes of eld 

My careless footsteps drew — 

Unmindful, in the days of youth, 

How evil years draw nigh 

To strip the sayer of his sooth. 

The purple from the sky — 

When life, that seemed a leman's song, 

Shall seem a sinner's sigh) — 

"Father", I said, "the day is done, 

The night draws on apace. 

Also for me a race was run 

When I was granted grace 

To speed one on his pilgrimage 

Had looked hell in the face — " 

That night great peace fell on his soul, 

And ere another day 

His God, at last found pitiful 

Called, and he went away — 

There was such gladness in his eyne, 

"We would not have him stay. 

But oft whenas o'er where is seized 

Of what domain may be 

That pilgrim, sitteth one baptized 

Who also sinned as he — 

And might again, for that the flesh 

Doth wrestle mightily — 

(But then, as out of paynim tombs. 

The ghosts come, with the smell 

Of death, and skulls be crowned of blooms 

Such as I heard him tell 

The tendrils of his soul withal 

Entwined the rose of hell — ) 

And all the voices of the day 

Still as the day nigh done. 

And green earth suddenly grown gray 

At setting of the sun. 

And then in heaven, God's altar lights 

Alitten one by one — 

Meseemeth this his tale, whereof 

At last is here the scroll, 

Were also, but for God His love. 



Indite of mine own dole — 

Pray ye, who read, that pilgrim peace, 

And also for my soul. 



BALLAD TO PROSERPINE. 

Now Hellas' fanes are ruinous, 
Great Pan forg:ets the ferny brake, 
In woods and ways unbrageous 
No summer drowsy Dryads wake; 
Nor nerieds wet tresses shake, 

White bosomed in the silver sea 

I am aweary for their sake — 
Queen Proserpine, I turn to thee. 

Alas, they were so gracious 

The Gods of old! not fain to make 

Mortality more piteous 

For hells, whereat all we do quake. 

A little store of wine and cake 

We gave. — Among the gods that be 

Such sacrifice would any take? 

Queen Proserpine, I turn to thee. 

They would our knees were tremulous. 
The gods that reign, through fear and ache; 
With fasts they'd make us hideous, 
For beauty bites them as a snake. 
Howbeit the iron years that brake 
Jove's Kingdom, this divinity 
As rubbish shall they spare to rake? 
Queen Proserpine, I turn to thee. 

Envoi: 

For thou, by the Cimmerian lake, 
Dost gather Gods and men — For me 
So much is sure. My thirst to slake, 
Queen Proserpine, I turn to the. 



A PRAYER TO PERSEPHONE. 

To Queen Persephone a prayer I pray 
Who am her loyal servitor and knight, 
Albeit but late a dweller in the light 
Pale shimmering of her wan Cimmerian day, 
Wherein her shadowy folk and strengthless stray, 
And sea-birds wing a weak and faltering slight 
O'er waves as weightless as the winds that bite 
Her shadowy shores, that gloom in mist alway. 
Princess of pallid peoples, hear my prayer! 
My lady came before me o'er the tide 
That moans, as knowing only thou are sure; 
But where she dwells the covering shadows hide, 
Show me, and surely I will seek her there — 
For even in death her love and mine endure. 



COBWEBS. 

And what and if the spider 
Weave cobwebs o'er my scroll? 
The grave pit yawns no wider 
Nor heavier death's dole 
For epitaphs effaced, 
Forgotten, or erased — 



THE SLEEP OF CAIN. 

There's a tomb, far in the desert, 
Where, as the ages pass, 
Cain sleeps on, his bier upon, 
Under a sky of brass. 

The sons of Enoch builded 
That mighty bier of bronze. 
Lions guard it and serpents ward it. 
Under the awful suns. 

And ever, as day dies gory, 
Far on the red sand-line, 
The brow of Cain is branded again 
With the ensanguined sign, 

And the lions carved in granite 
And stony serpents hear 
The dead lips curse the universe 
And the builders of the bier — 

Till the veil of night is drawn, 
And the ruddy stars, revealed, 
Spatter the pall that covers all. 
And the lips that curse are sealed. 



AT THIRTY-ONE. 

Tni thirty-one — not old, you say? 
Well, maybe not; 
Yet old enough to wish to stay 
The floods of thought, 

That rising, threaten now to drown 

The dull content 

The years have brought with them — sit down, 

Benevolent 

Old girl, sit down! Philosophy, 
Sit by my side! 

You are, what woman will not be 
My love, my bride. 

What woman will not be? Oh yes, 
No doubt it's so; 

Yet one, her name was — call it Bess — 
It rhymes, you know — 

Well, she I beneath the moon, 
0' summer nights, 
We used to swallow, with a spoon. 
True love's delights. 

And when dawn paled before the blush 

My heai-t had shrined, 

I felt the blood of twenty flush 

My face, since lined — 

In courses you know nothing of. 

Philosophy; 

Or knowing, hardly would approve; 

So let them be. 

But Lord! How everything is changed! 
Beneath the moon. 

You'd think, I'd think, your spouse deranged, 
To stroll and spoon! 

When day goes down the ways of gold, 
At set of sun, 

I stay at home and smoke — I'm old, ' 
I'm thirty one. 

And though not fond of matin dews, 
I rise at dawn, 



And hie me to my desk — the Jews 
Hold me in pawn. 

And Bessie — where the deuce is she? 
I ought to know — 
But doubtless she's forgotten me — 
And be it so ! 

But here's to love that failed to give 
The man a wife, 

And here's — since one has got to live— 
The liar, Life! 



INSOMNIA. 

Whoever, weary night, by weary night. 

And nightly, leaden hour by leaden hour, 

Has heard the deep-toned bells of some church tower 

With sudden cleavage of the silence smite 

The murky dark, the sickly dawning light; 

While from the cavernous places where they cower 

In the mind's crannies, by Insomnia's power. 

Come forth the imps of memory, to blight 

The last hours left for slumber, one by one — 

By such a man mere blank oblivion. 

The "Vale" of the old world's dead, the sleep 

Of much forgetfulness, were hailed a boon. 

Blessed beyond all dreams of them that keep 

Cult of Elysium.ns lamped by sun or moon. 



ANODYNES. 

If one, remembering all the months and years, 

And weeks and days of youth irrevocable, 

Wasted in ways whereon he would not dwell, 

Save in those moments when Remorse appears, 

Forcibly entering, with cup of tears 

Held forth for him to quaff; or when the knell 

Sounds of some Reformation, and the bell 

Of blackness tolls it, and its late compeers — 

If in the juice of wormwood, or the wine 

Of lethal poppy blooms, he drowns the thought 

Of what so irretrievably is wrought, — 

Not too incontinent that soul consign 

To some red torment after, more condign — 

God gave not any of these herbs for naught. 



ON A STATUETTE OF PALLAS. 

Be thy lovers daring 
As thou art cold, 
Mailed maiden, faring 
Star-eyed and bold, 
White Pallas, wearing 
The casque of gold! 



DIRGE. 

Strew lily, rose and asphodel, 
And heap them high upon the breast 
Where modesty was wont to dwell. 
And tender love had made a nest; 
The asphodel, for she's at rest; 
Lily and rose, for she was pure 
And lovely past all power to tell, 
Or any art of portraiture. 

Oh, moons will rise and wane and set, 
The world will go its wonted ways, 
And men remember and forget, 
And love and hate and blame and praise; 
But not in all the length of days 
Will any pass the gates of birth 
Whose brow the gentle coronet 
Might wear, of her we lay in earth. 



THE LAST TRYST. 

Not on earth were we unblest, 
Where the light and flowers be; 
Yet, mine own, how sweet is rest 
Here with thee! 

Faint the fall of tired feet 
Through the thickness of the roof; 
Doth not silence serve, my sweet, 
Our behoof? 

Heard no more life's ceaseless sigh, 
Moan of men who faint and fret; 
So may we more easily 
Sighs forget. 

And thou art each day more dear, 
Now, in the diminished light, 
In the peace that waxes here 
With the night. 

So are all things well, mine own! 
Thou thy pallid cheek incline, 
Pale as sweet white roses blown, 
Close to mine. 

For thy pallid rose, of peace 

Signet is, as of a King, 

Who should swear that rest shall cease 

Wandering. 

Rest from us may roam no more! 
Press thy pale lips to my brow! 
Sweet thy kisses were before — 
Sweeter now. 

And a cold kiss on the cheek 
Sweet as four lips passion-pressed — 
We have lived our lives, and seek 
Only rest — 

Rest in love, that like a star 
Here is fixed. Sweet, let us slumber. 
Ours is sleep no dark dreams mar, 
No cares cumber. 



OF A MEMORY. 

Where art thou now, sweetheart? 
In the dark tomb! 
Yet thou hast won the lig-ht — 
I guard the gloom. 

Thou'rt with the angels now, 
In the blue heaven; 
Chanting Maid Mary's praise, 
Morning and even. 

Oh white nun affianced! 
Love lily in flower! 
Pale blossom of passion 
That blushed but an hour! 

Long now, by the throne, 
Earth's voices are mute; 
Once more, in your choral, 
Let Love wake the lute. 



ON HER ANNIVERSARY. 
'Qui bien ayme tard oublye" 



The years may teach us to forget, 

And love's once moving minstrelsy 

Lose most of its old music — yet 

A verse from Chaucer's song, from one 

Who loved him long ago — with you — 

May whisper, more than years have gone 

Since then, but true love's ever true. 



AN AFTERWORD. 

(Some things, perforce, I left unsaid:) 

It is a dream, that tired eyes 

Shall close to ope on happier skies. 

Where care beginneth not with light, 

And evil dreams come not by night. 

It is a heavy thing, ye say? 

The night hath watchers, with the day. 

It is a tale — believe it not — 

That prates of flames that feed on thought; 

All ye have felt the selfsame fire; 

The fagots change but not the pyre, 

The sacrificial fumes ascend 

From other flesh, and there's an end. 

It is a lie, that there is love 
More sweet to hold, more strong to move, 
Love that hath not its part of pain, 
That in the fane ye would constrain; 
Yearning shall unto yearning call 
Athwart waste spaces — it is all. 

If life be like a darkling plain 
Death is a dim and dreary main, — 
They are all fond, the dreams you dream. 
No shaft of fierier light, no beam 
Benigner, streaks the shoreless sea — 
The thing that hath been, it shall be. 

(These things I know, for I am dead). 



AN ASSIGNATION. 

"I'd have a tryst, fair damosel." 
''And thou shalt have a tryst", she said, 
''I'll meet thee by the mossy cross 
I' the midnight moon", she said. 

"Thou 'It know it in the eerie light. 
It leaneth where the cross ways meet, 
'Tis gray and worn, and marks the bourne 
Where stay men's feet." 

"What bourne is that, fair damosel?" 
"'Tis thine and mine and love's, sweet sir; 
To seal our vows were meet a house. 
And one is there." 

"And hast a bed, fair damosel?" 
"Nor bed shall lack, nor shrouding sheet. 
A narrow bed, but it is said 
For lovers such is meet." 

"Nay, likes me not to hear of shrouds; 
I called thee to a bed of love" — 
"And thou shalt see I'll cherish thee 
With love enough. 

"No closer than the church yard worm 
To thy shut lips my lips shall cling. 
Thou wilt not think to leave my bed 
Though the lark sing; 
But it shall guard thy body's print 
When next year's violets spring." 



BIBLIOPHILOS. 

Behold, I build a treasure house, 
The which within my goods to store, 
And whatsoe'er I gather more 
Between what is and is to be, 
Or ere mine end of days arouse 
A foe to mine avidity. 

No treasure house like those of Kings, 
For armors made in beaten gold. 
And cups enchased and salvers scrolled, 
And gems against the Evil Eye, 
And vestments stiff with broiderings 
An handbreath on the purple high. 

Lo, wealth in this kind would I none, 
Belshazzar heaped, as monarchs use. 
Much treasure that the Mede will choose, 
What time they leave the water gates 
Without a watch in Babylon 
To be a breach for robber hates. 

But me the Mede had let alone, 
My things of cost he covets not, 
Behold, it is but gold of thought — 
This house I build, a chest of scrolls, 
And builded in a way mine own — 
I have not wrought for other souls. 



THEY AND WE. 

Their eyes, that met the lightning flash, 
Saw gleam a god's red beard; 
Their ears, when broke the thunder crash, 
Heaven's smitten anvils heard, 
As av^ful arms, in meteless sweep. 
That mighty hammer moved to swing 
Whose blows, reverberate through the deep, 
Made all the abysms ring. 

They saw and sang it, as might we, 

Were ours their minds unspoiled, 

That imaged not Immensity 

In any meshes toiled; 

They'd mock or pity our pale lays, 

Whose penning is the lot 

Of mourners for their spacious days, 

And dreams that visit not. 



THE CORYBANTES. 

-What stars are these, that stoop 
and kiss the flowers? 



1st Dryad- 

2nd Dryad- 

The 

Corybantes — Sing we Cybebe! 

Sing, Corybantes! 

Sing Dindymene! 



-Nay, Dindymene's torches in the wood. 
Hide we, and hear the Corybantes' song. 



1st Dryad- 



-How shrill their song, and how the 
night wind blows 
The torch — flames backward like a 
Maenad's hair! 



2nd Dryad See now, how wild they leap — 



The 
Corybantes 



Cymbals! Clash louder! 
White feet! dance harder! 
Leap! Corybantes! 



1st Dryad A shrilly song! 

2nd Dryad Like Maenad's dancing round their 

viney God 

Are they, or who sings Cotys in 

bleak Thrace 



THE BURGHERS. 

A King reigned in the Kingdom, 
Sombre, a man of wrath. 
The which with swordsmen and spearmen 
Went up against our path. 

Many his days and evil, 
The works and days of the King; 
Tyrannous, under an evil law. 
The times of his governing. 

Or ere his svt^ordsmen and spearmen 
Sate down before our walls, 
Taunting us from their tented camp, 
How all we were his thralls. 

Then a mighty rush of the stormers — 
Met by a mightier breed; 
Outside the gates, swung wide a space, 
We niet them, man and steed. 

Then had ye seen a battle! 

His swordsmen smote us sore; 

That dawn saw many a man ride forth 

Will ride forth nevermore. 

Then had ye seen a battle! 

But at the last they fled; 

And the fields his chargers furrowed 

Flowered foison of his dead. 

But the fields his chargers furrowed, 
How are they green with corn ! 
Where the surge of the sea of horsemen 
Broke on that bloody morn. 

How are the mighty fallen! 
Say it, oh evil King! 
Went ye up once against our path? 
But the lips of the people sing! 



OUR LADY LIFE. 

Oh Life, that smiles so sweetly 
Upon our beardless days ! 
To snub us so completely 
When once the whisker greys — 
You're like the lass unsteady 
And often overbold — 
Our lady, alv/ays ready 
To ease us of our gold. 

But Nancy's feet who dances 
So nimbly late o' nights 
Soon tire, and haggard glances 
Won't buy the beers and tights — 
While you wear on in beauty 
That never seems to fade — 
My compliments and duty, 
Sweet sempiternal jade! 

I loved you most sincerely, 

Before I got your gait. 

And though you've acted queerly 

I can't sAy that I hate — 

If fires flicker faintly 

That once so fiercely burned — 

Consider, sweet and saintly — 

I've lived awhile — and learned. 

I know your moods and motions, 
Soft tigress — and your claws — 
I know you've got your notions — - 
And all about your laws — 
I know you too completely, 
Dear love, to love as erst 
Our Lady, blessing sweetly 
The lovers she has cursed. 

You smile, and so demurely, 
I'd swear my lady's waist- — 
You're not the lassie, surely, 
We've all of us embraced! 
My love, you wear the lily 
So well, I'd chuck the rose — 
Our Lady, always chilly 
When chilly fortune blows. 

We played the game together — 
And you with loaded dice — 



And it's a question, whether 

That's altogether nice — 

But sinners and unshriven 

Are all who play for pelf, 

Sweet life — and you're forgiven — 

I've braced the game myself. 

So call it quits, my lady — 
Let's kiss and say good-night — 
If you're a trifle shady, 
I'm not a shining light. 

But pray, don't take the trouble- 

You needn't ring the bell — 
Dear irridescent bubble! — 
Our Lady Life, farewell! 



THE WINGED VICTORY OF SAMOTHRACE, 

1. 
It's night, and now the janitors have gone, 
After their chores, as long ago the crowds 
That gaped un-understanding up and down 
The statued aisles, and a deep darkness shrouds 
The replicas of statues in the aisle 
And Parian marble fragments, yet that smile — 

2. 
A smile of maimed lips since the Turk and time 
Condemned them to what sometimes seems a sneer 
At masqueraders in so mean a mine 
As temporalities have staged us here, — 
Not such a theatre as Aeschylus 
Or Aristophanes had staged for us. 

3. 
Not that this boy here, whom his mother's lost 
Thinks of these things crouched weeping at the feet 
Of the Winged Victory — as wires are crossed 
And police headquarters hustle, as is meet. 
And but to be expected, when has lost 
A house its hope — and lines of course are crossed. 

4. 
However, Jimmy boy crouched there and slept 
Soundly at last, and, strange as it may seem 
After boy Jimmy many tears had wept, 
Rocked in soft slumber, Jimmy dreamed a dream, 
And this is how boy Jimmy told it me, 
Revised a bit for you, at mama's knee. 

5. 
Seemed little Jim the marble girl above 
Who's been so speechless, sudden found a voice, 
And bent towards him, as a mother's love 
Weans oft from wakefulness such little boys. 
And Jimmy heard, in some obscure embrace 
Of sleep, the Victory of Samothrace: 

6. 
''There was a king long since in Macedon 
And master of Greek cities, and you may 
Weil deem him king who died in Babylon 
Master of all the world — even as today 
A conqueror, but in no v/ise his peer 
Makes the sunsets so red, our days so drear. 

7. 
"As whispers me that mummied Gipsy Queen 
Coffined beside" — and Jimmy's chubby arm 
That will be muscled some day, points between 
Where mama sat, and I — but now the charm 



Of the child's talk, so direct in its way, 
Dictates the rest of what I have to say: 

8. 
He reigned, the King of Kings, in Babylon, 
Master of earth, since Pflacedonian arms 
Had conquered all the world; but Macedon, 
Her severe custom, now no longer charms, 
So that the King of Kings gave such a feast 
As a King may to the Indwelling Beast. 

9. 
Even now, whose horrent lineaments red earth 
Abhors — but Jimmy's speech seemed here to halt 
And hesitate at such a monstrous birth. 
And you nor I will think it Jimmy's fault, 
Because the Victory of Samothrace 
Vv^asn't precise concerning time and place. 

10. 
The King of Kings died in a mad debauch 
And a great golden car goes tossing on 
Drawn by a thousand oxen, or as much 
More traction power, as may, to Macedon, 
Over hills intervening, drag the clay 
That gave law unto all earth yesterday. 

11. 
And then the Captains of the King of Kings 
Contended, since their Master nov/ is dead, 
And these had been commanders of the wings. 
Those of the center, when their Captain led, 

V/ho, if he weets of battles won or lost 

But (Jimmy interjects) — ''the lines are crossed" 

12. 
And so they are — though the confusion melts 
Into some semblance of order, as 
Demetrius, m.aster of men's souls and pelts. 
Rides fickle fortune's favorite, and was 
It seemed awhile, his heir, of Macedon, 
Who was born king, and died in Babylon. 

13. 
Demetrius — let his, with the dust of kings. 
Innocuous mingle — who just missed the goal — 
Doughtily warred he, and despite the things 
He did most barbarous, not against the soul, 
So that his star increased and came to seem 
The destined Sun of Alexander's Dream. 

14. 
— There was a great seafight off Salamis, 
Demetrius' galleys against Ptolemy's — 
But Jimmy here remembers only this. 
The fight was for the lordship of the seas, 



And neither of the admirals could guess 
Which way veered victory, till in the press 

15. 
Of boarders on decks slippery with blood, 
As the ships grappled, of Demetrius 
One of the sailors saw a Shape that stood 
Aairpoised, and with gesture victorious 
Points to the flag of Ptolemy that flees, — 
And left Demetrius sovran of the seas. 

16. 
But such the whirring of those visioned wings 
And opalescent splendor of the plumes 
That shipman thought no more of sailor things 
But only (so our artistry presumes 
To be the all in all) by what means his 
Art shall inform that Shape of Salamis — 

17. 
And since he was, before he sailed the sea, 
One of the marble carvers, so his craft 
He plied again, as witness thankfully 
Our greyer days, that his let loose a shaft 
Of such light from amid a storm of spears 
As levins yet the darkness of the years. 

18. 
But little Jimmy's curls, who's fast asleep. 
His bright head pillowed on his mama's breast. 
Remind how wise a thing it is to keep 
Silence when all is said, and for the rest 
I think the Victory of Samothrace 
Isn't too tolerant of commonplace. 



'Of old, unhappy, far off things 
And battles long ago — " 



Wordsworth. 



There is an island not far out to sea 

From a surfbeaten and forbidding shore, 

That sea-marauders intermittently 

Assailed and wind and wave forevermore 

Shifting the dunes and estuaried lands 

Whose tides oared in the longboats of the bands. 

A realm such as that lost land Lyonesse, 

Ocean hath conquered, and the wearing wave 

Hollowed its caves, till into nothingness 

Were plunged the people and the place a grave — 

But that was in the very long ago, 

Nor much concerns us now, who do not know — 

We do not know in Lyonesse what kings 
Were regnant, nor when towered Tintagel 
Was castled, nor when, in the hap of things 
Embattled, suddenly it was a shell — 
A rusty hauberk, where a pulsing heart 
Was brave, and fain of beating as thou art — 

Yea, thine heart too. Spirit whom hoary Eld 
Delighteth to despoil of any sense 
Of things that are, and whom his times withheld 
Present fruition and a recompense — 
Because, perhaps, he never was of this 
Moment of the descent in the abyss. 

But I am wandering — and to our tale — 
It is a slight tale, perhaps of nothing worth — 
What is of worth when lamps burn low or fail 
And candles daily gutter out on earth — 
That lightened lost souls, perhaps a little way 
Only, but were a counterfeit of day — 

And substituted for the amorous light 
Of the begetting sun a lamp that lit 
The passages presaging of the night 
And stayed our stumbling a little bit — 
A barren and an unbegetting bed ' 
Till also ours, as he is coffined — 

Because 'tis in a crypt sleepeth today, 
He whom I sing, bred on that stormbeat isle 



West of a shore forbidding, where you may 
Yet see how wreckers' lights did once beguile, — 
And from the elements delivered then 
Mariners knew what mercy is in men. 

Ke went out with his hundred — put to sea, 
V/hen on the wind born in o'er dune and down 
The booming of the horns, and dolefully 
Tolled the deep bells in hermitage and town — 
Warning that sea assault was threatening 
And warships wait their crews out in the olung. 

The tale saith little more than that he shipped, 
And in a great sea fight was one of them 
Deeply whose shirt was in the bloodbath dipped. 
And that he clutched, and let go, glory's hem — 
And if he found a bed beside the knights 
In effigy, it was not his by rights. 

They buried him there in the chapel crypt 
Because his body, cast up on the shore, 
Alone of all them from the shire that shipped 
Ever again was come back from that war — 
So red it was, and until this day said 
Not since so darkly multiplied the dead — 

Till often in a hundred none was left 
Even to dig a grave — till there was none 
Needing a hind whose hand thereat was deft, 
Nor thereabout new graves beneath the sun; 
But the pale nrioon and unforgetful stars 
Remember them, that after those red wars 

Slowly and as unwillingly the folk 
Came back and tilled the fields, and stock increased, 
And graves were digged again, and fixed a yoke 
Once more upon the neck of carl and beast — 
And something gone out of the old red days 
Did not make any easier their ways — 

Why have I strung these stanzas on a string 
So weakly wove the rosary may break 
At any bead? — the mere impulse to sing — 

The rhymer's instinct — rhyme for rhyming's sake 

Or perhaps because who's landed on that isle 
Him ever after ghosts of things beguile. 



ENVOI. 

It is not a barge on the river 
Drifts down with bird's neck prow — 
Barges such as biered Elaine 
Float on no rivers now 

Stately, the lower reaches, 

With immobile white wings — 

Look ye out again, ye will see a swan- 

And now he sings 

On the edge of the swirling eddies — 
The white-capped current strong — 
And it is given a swan to sing 
Only one song 



1 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




